But it seemed hours before it ceased, and slowly the awful conviction began to dawn on me that the Japanese did not intend to give quarter. They were, after all, the bloodthirsty pagans they had been represented to be. The tales which the Russians had told of their savagery were true. They had got too many prisoners on their hands already. Our crowd would only be an incumbrance to them, so they had determined to shoot all they could and then finish off the rest of us with the bayonet. I was going to have convincing proof of Japanese barbarity, but I would never live to tell the tale.
Just as I had given up all hope, the fire suddenly ceased, and at a distant point on our right a long line of men rose out of the ground and advanced rapidly towards us. The order in which they marched and the sunlight shimmering on their broad sword-bayonets showed that they were soldiers, and, when they came nearer, their uniforms and their small size proved that they were Japanese.
Onward they came, just as I had often seen them years before on the Aoyama parade-ground. At that time, I must say, I was no more impressed by their gorgeous French uniforms than if they had been Orange bandsmen parading the streets of Belfast on July 12; for what were they but copyists, birds in borrowed plumage, men who would, like all Asiatics, fade away before a White army like sinners before the wrath of God?
But now it was all different. Fifty thousand dead had made that uniform historic. A years fighting had placed them among Caesars legions and the Old Guard of Napoleon.
I had seen them, in mimic fight at Kumamoto, performing, under the eyes of the Mikado, feats which every foreign military attachd present declared to be impossible in real warfare. In Manchuria I had seen them prove these foreign critics wrong a dozen times over.
I was now to get a closer view of them than ever I had had in my life. On they came, all the same size, all wonderfully alike, as if they had been turned out of the same mould. On they came, with quick, elastic step, until I could distinguish each boyish beardless face, until I could see a long line of gleaming white teeth and glittering jet-black eyes.
It was a dangerous moment, for they had heard as much of Russian treachery as the Russians had heard of Japanese treachery, and some imprudent act on the part of a crazy Russian soldier might have cost us all our lives. From the ugly gleam in their slanting eyes, from the angle at which they held their rifles clutched, I knew that they were prepared for anything. But they had nothing to fear from the poor Russkies, who stood all the time as calm as a herd of cows.
On seeing the enemy approach to disarm them, a great weight seemed to be taken off their minds, and they even joked. One of them asked me if I was a Japanese officer, and, without waiting for an answer, expressed his candid admiration for the way in which I had done it. He even scowled on a companion on whose face he fancied he could detect a slight shade of disapprobation. An officer consulted me about the best manner of surrendering his sword.
" Shall I throw it away," he asked genially, "or give it up? "
A second officer rushed forward to ask if he should continue or not blowing the bugle to announce the cesses feu; but on this last point my expression of opinion was not waited for, as everybody roared simultaneously at the bugler to blow with all his might. Also, everybody roared at everybody else to continue waving white handkerchiefs. There seemed to be an impression abroad that if anybody ceased for a moment to wave something white, all was lost.
The Japanese were now within forty yards of us. They were preceded by a breathless little non-commissioned officer. The language difficulty remained, but it was an obstacle which was easily brushed aside.
The Russians genially shouted " Hodya! " a friendly
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
term they apply to Chinamen when they want the latter to come to them. The Japanese cried out in more unexceptionable Chinese M Li! Li!" ("Come! come!") At the same time several soldiers rushed towards us, breathing hard, devouring us with their almond eyes, still uncertain that there would not be treachery.